[wp-trac] [WordPress Trac] #27406: Widget Customizer: Organize all widget area sections into a meta customizer section

[WordPress Trac]

#27406: Widget Customizer: Organize all widget area sections into a meta customizer
section
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 Reporter:  westonruter      |      Owner:
     Type:  feature request  |     Status:  new
 Priority:  normal           |  Milestone:  Future Release
Component:  Widgets          |    Version:  trunk
 Severity:  normal           |   Keywords:
  Focuses:  ui, javascript   |
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 Customizer sections for widget areas only appear on previewed URLs that
 contain that widget area (sidebar) used in the template (i.e.
 `dynamic_sidebar()` is used). By hiding the sections for widget areas not
 shown in the preview, we can conserve a lot of space in the customizer. If
 all widget area sections are always shown, the sidebar would be very
 cluttered.

 A solution to this is that all the widget area sections should be grouped
 into one meta section, as shaunandrews has proposed:

 [[Image(https://github-
 camo.global.ssl.fastly.net/0228089e384833d5df07f0f7dd9540555af6778d/68747470733a2f2f692e636c6f756475702e636f6d2f76514b53415666586c4c2e676966)]]

 With this in place, more widget area sections could be shown at a time,
 and potentially make it easier to reorder widgets between sidebars as
 well, as right now it is a bit hacky how drag-and-drop support is
 implemented to move widgets between customizer sections, as normally only
 one section is open at a time in the accordion.

 Some messaging could be shown to direct users that they should navigate to
 the page that has the sidebar in use and then enter the customizer from
 there. They can either navigate to this page from within the customizer or
 from the frontend and click the link in the admin bar. There could also be
 a checkbox/button to toggle between showing only the widget areas
 currently used in the previewed URL, or to show all of the widget areas
 regardless but with some additional indicator (such as being faded out,
 see also #27405).

 Originally discussed at https://github.com/x-team/wp-widget-
 customizer/issues/77

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Ticket URL: <https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/27406>
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